Hook Jaw 2017

A homage to one of my favourite comic characters as a child. Action was a notorious weekly boys anthology launched in 1975. Extremely violent, it was naturally hugely popular with its target audience – young boys like myself. I was aged 11 at the time. The most popular story in the comic was ‘Hook Jaw’, a series about a great white shark; the shark was a killer but not the villain. That epithet was bestowed on the greedy human oil baron who had dumped his rig in Hook Jaw’s territory, leading to a bloody clash. The art was initially by Ramon Sola, a Spanish artist whose work would help influence my own. I had the good fortune to meet him years later at gathering of comics types in a London pub and had one of those moments where I sputtered and babbled, caught up in hero worship.

If you’re not familiar with ‘Hook Jaw’ or Action, 1975 was pivotal as it was the year Jaws hit the cinema. Both the film and the comic that sought to emulate its success were responsible in spurring my love of sharks to life. This passion came to a head when I had the chance to edit a re-launch and re-imagining of ‘Hook Jaw’ for Titan Comics in 2016. It was only natural that I would want to do a visual homage to one of the greatest characters in the history of UK comics.